CBS Gets 7 Minutes of Super Bowl Time to Spotlight New TV Season, Paramount Streamers

variety.com:

Brian Steinberg Senior TV Editor On Sunday night, Mike Benson gets a little over seven minutes to cap off weeks of work. The CBS marketing chief will use promo time allotted to Paramount Global during the Super Bowl to turbocharge a broad array of campaigns he has set in motion in the past few months aimed at getting viewers excited about one of the most unorthodox TV seasons in history. “Think about what we are up against here,” says Benson, a veteran of the business of promoting programming who has also worked at ABC and Amazon. “It’s the first time going back to 1954 that a broadcast network is launching a season outside of the fall” due to the recent Hollywood talent strikes.

CBS will use the Super Bowl to tout not just the new drama “Tracker,” which gets its debut right after the end of the game, but also “Ghosts,” “Fire Country,” “So Help Me Todd” and “Young Sheldon.” Some of that promo time will also be allocated to the free video-on-demand outlet Pluto as well as Paramount+, all part of parent company Paramount Global.

The marketing tactics are crucial for Paramount, which has been viewed as an acquisition candidate by Wall Street and needs to demonstrate its prowess in getting people to watch its content in sizable numbers. “The exclusive airing of Super Bowl LVIII this Sunday will be a bright spot for the company at a time when Paramount Global remains under pressure due to its transition to and competition in streaming from its declining linear operations,” says Neil Begley, a media analyst and senior vice president at Moody’s, in a note. “Also, we believe that more eyes on the game than average are likely given that we expect higher numbers of non-traditional fans watching for Taylor Swift sightings, which.